


I Wanna Get Better

by damedanbo



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Eating Disorders, Gen, I Just Love To Hurt Kyouya, Isolation, Past Child Abuse, Trans Male Character, oh wow uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 19:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12019713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damedanbo/pseuds/damedanbo
Summary: He reminded himself that he didn’t mind that at all; not being needed or called upon was exactly what he wanted. It was better not to be bothered by herbivores every few minutes. Being hated wasn’t an issue either. If the whole Vongola famiglia wanted him to disappear, that was fine too."You’re lonely," some voice inside of him said. It might have been Fon. "You should reach out."No, thank you.





	I Wanna Get Better

**Author's Note:**

> Back on my McBullshit in the KHR fandom! Uhhh this is hiiiighly roleplay based. I've been playing Hibari, Chrome, and Squalo in a private KHR group for the past few months, and having a lot of fun... Anyway, obviously all of the headcanons in this are taken straight from roleplay. 
> 
> This is set 5YL, in Italy, mid to late summer.

Kyouya’s house in Italy was terribly traditional. Somewhere between the coldness of his bitter childhood estate, and the sterile chill of the Foundation base he’d established in Namimori, he had carved a cool, dark place for himself in the idyllic countryside.

Actually, the house was quite bright, all paper screens and open windows and calm, sleepy, natural summer air. Cream and medium brown tones seemed to have been the designer’s inspiration, and Hibari had never made an effort to change anything about the house himself. He had never so much as replaced a lightbulb or moved a kitchen appliance from here to there; not that he used the kitchen.

It stood out, the house, in that it was strictly, blatantly, painfully Japanese in the middle of Italy. People would occasionally stop on the road nearby to take pictures of the beautiful house; though Kyouya’s property was nothing short of “vast” and the road some distance away. As a precautionary measure, he had erected a fence around his gardens, blocking the house off from the world the same way he blocked himself off. The walls were highly symbolic to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention.

He visited the Vongola mansion occasionally, usually on business, occasionally to see Chrome and take her somewhere. He came and went as he pleased, as they had all agreed upon; as long as his work was done, he was allowed to do as he willed, and never required to be present for mafia nonsense. It was something similar to Mukuro’s arrangements, and also, the exact opposite, for the illusionist was never allowed to enter the manor, on fear of instantaneous death.

But it was the Japanese house, not the manor, and not Mukuro’s apartment today, where Kyouya found himself this afternoon. Rather, he didn’t have to look far for himself. He’d not moved in a few days, except for to drag himself to the bathroom on occasion. Tetsu brought him meals every few hours, checking in on him, putting new movies into the Blu-ray player for him. Kyouya refused all food, but appreciated the gestures in silence.

If anyone else had noticed his lack of activity, they’d not said anything. The group chat was as noisy as ever, so Kyouya had muted notifications- but he checked occasionally for private messages. There were none, not since he had left the country and returned to Namimori. 

He reminded himself that he didn’t mind that at all; not being needed or called upon was exactly what he wanted. It was better not to be bothered by herbivores every few minutes. Being hated wasn’t an issue either. If the whole Vongola famiglia wanted him to disappear, that was fine too. 

_ You’re lonely,  _ some voice inside of him said. It might have been Fon.  _ You should reach out. _

No, thank you. Kyouya turned the page of his book and pinned the paper back against its brethren, several hundred thick now. He was near the end of his re-read of Battle Royale. The movie played from across the room; he couldn’t see it from his position, stretched out under the low table, head on the floor, book held up in the air over him, but he could hear it just fine. The lighthouse scene. Four girls, best friends, suddenly turned on each other and shot each other to death over an accident, a mistake. Arguably the best scene in the story. Tetsuya had stepped in twice now today to offer to put in a different movie for him, or perhaps a game, but Kyouya had shook his head in silence, eyes never leaving the page. His second in command simply restarted the movie and left him again.

He was still in that position some half hour later, when two pairs of footsteps approached- no, three, one stumbling and running after the other two. The door on the far side of the room slid open smoothly, and from somewhere behind the intruders, Tetsu cried out for him: “Kyou-san! I’m sorry, they barged right in!”

Kyouya’s eyes flickered to the left, towards two pairs of socked feet. Slim, pale legs on the both of them. Kitty socks on the one to the right. Chrome, for sure. The other was a man- process of elimination made that one easy, too. Gokudera Hayato.

The two of them stood there a moment as if processing the scene, though they were surely both quicker thinkers than that. Chrome spoke first, as she invited herself in and knelt down next to the low table. “Well, you look like crap.”

“Impolite,” Kyouya said, turning the page.

“Is this what you’ve been up to?” Chrome asked, looking around again at the stacks of books, the untouched plate of food on the table, long cold, and the violent movie on the tv. “We thought you might have died.”

“I do not die so easily,” Kyouya warned her, shooting another flickering glance at Gokudera Hayato. He still stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “If you’re going to let yourself in, you might as well sit down.”

Gokudera made a noise like a “tch” and stepped carefully into the messy room. It didn’t usually look this bad; Tetsu tried to keep the house clean and pristine, ready for visitors that never came.

Gokudera sat down on Chrome’s over side, resting an elbow on his raised knee. Kyouya recoiled slightly from his closeness, drawing his bare legs in. He had laid down three days ago in a t-shirt and boxers, no binder, no pants, and hadn’t changed since. The shirt was rumpled, looking a bit faded. There were worse things to be caught dead in.

“You haven’t been eating,” Gokudera surmised from the untouched plate of meat and vegetables on the table. He looked over at Tetsu, who suffered a moment of shame for allowing his boss to be in such a condition. Then the big man moved in to remove the plate, and left the room to prepare another. “You were supposed to stop doing this shit.”

“The pot can call the kettle black all it wants,” Kyouya drawled, “you’re no less-”

“Enough,” Chrome warned. She was avoiding looking at him. Was he gross? Did his very existence disgust her at this point? His grey pallor, bulging collarbone, his boney hands and joints.The bags under his eyes wouldn’t have gotten through airport security, not in this day and age.

Very clever.

“I’ve gained the weight back from my trip to Namimori,” Kyouya said casually, glossing over the part where he’d been wallowing and grieving for his mother for two months now. “It’s fine.”

“You’ve had a problem since before then,” Gokudera said, eyes focused on him. Kyouya could just barely make eye contact with him, under the bottom of his book. “And don’t try to turn this on me. I’m not the one who’s dying.”

“Who’s dying?” Kyouya asked, finally setting the book down and sitting up, dragging himself out from underneath the table.

“Will you look at yourself? You think because you put some muscle back on, you’re going to be okay? Look at  _ me! I  _ shouldn’t have been able to take you down, and you know I did.”

Kyouya looked away. That hadn’t been a particularly nice fight, not at all what he was used to. Tetsu returned with a sandwich on a plate; he was probably running out of food, having thrown so much of it away. Kyouya couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about that. The pompadoured man set the plate on the table in front of him. The three of them stared at it.

“Hibari,” Chrome said carefully, holding the name in her mouth as if she wasn’t sure whether to still at the “-san” or not. “We don’t want to lose you.”

Kyouya’s pale eyes narrowed. He wanted so badly to say something cruel right now, something to make her cry, and Gokudera yell, and then both of them would leave and never bother him again.

_ Please don’t let that happen.  _

“I’m not dying,” he deflected again. 

“Your mother,” Gokudera started, and Kyouya cut him off.

“My mother had cystic fibrosis. She didn’t die for no reason.”

“You have symptoms.”

“Stop reading my files.”

“You have an eating disorder,” Gokudera said, standing up from his seat on the floor.

“And you-”

“And I have an eating disorder! And we both have to deal with it or we’re going to die of starvation! Look at this! You have  _ people  _ to feed you, right here!”

“I don’t want to be fed.”

_ Food is for people who deserve to eat. As for you- _

He was looking straight at Gokudera, but wasn’t prepared for the other man to haul him upright by the front of his shirt, then yank it up over his head.

“Stop!”

“Stop me, then!”

“Gokudera-san!” Chrome yelled, bolting upright, “that’s enough!”

Gokudera flung the t-shirt back at Kyouya , who snatched it up to cover his bare chest. “Eat! Now!”

Chrome was trying very hard not to look at his ribs, he could tell, as he fumbled to get the shirt back on without exposing himself. “That didn’t help anything,” Chrome was saying, voice shaking. “We came here to help him.”

“It’s called tough love,” Gokudera said gently, trying to calm her. Kyouya had his back to them, pulling the inside-out t-shirt back over his head, smoothing out the wrinkles over his skinny, bony body.  “Kyouya-”

“Get out.”

“We’re trying to help, Hibari-” Chrome whimpered.

“Stop pretending to like me. No one’s going to give you brownie points for this.”

“Listen, you piece of-!”

“Leave. Don’t make me say it again.” He might not have had his tonfa on him, but he knew how to fight, how to bruise, how to make things hurt.

Gokudera still bristled, but Chrome, hiding behind him, tugged on his shirt until he backed off, and the two of them swiftly exited the room. Kyouya didn’t move until he heard them leave the house, murmuring for a moment outside the front door with Tetsu- and then it was only him and his second left. He still couldn’t relax.

He turned, looking out over the mess of a room- toppled piles of books, neglected paperwork, a fine coat of dust over everything- and sneered, leaving the mess in disgust. He needed a shower.

 

That they had brought Cavallone in to fight where they had failed earned them no points in Hibari’s book, he decided, eyeing the blond man with distaste from across the room. Dino sat in earnest seiza, feet under his butt, smiling up at him.

“Yo, Kyouya! Long time no see, huh?”

If there had been a door to slam, Kyouya certainly would have done so. As it was, he stood in the entrance to the room, hands slack despite his desire to curl them into fists, face blank.

“You… wanna sit down and talk?”

“Nope,” Kyouya said, turning in place to leave.

“Wait, Kyouya! I brought you something neat!” Dino leapt to his feet and immediately fell face-first into the tatami floor. “Ow! My feet are asleep!”

Kyouya sighed. He always had been a useless idiot, underneath it all. He turned to face his old tutor again. “I don’t want your trinket,” he said, as Dino sat up and reached into his pocket, “tell me what you want and get out-”

It was a little yellow bird strap. Oh.

“Doesn’t it look just like Hibird?” Dino asked, tossing it to him. Kyouya caught it in both hands, examining the keychain closely. It sort of did.

“So? Will you sit down?” Dino asked again, crossing his legs in front of himself this time lest he topple over again. The effect, in a yukata, was not flattering- why Dino had thought it necessary to wear something like that just to visit him was absurd, but maybe he was trying to make Kyouya more comfortable, somehow. Somewhere in that pea-sized brain of his, he probably cared about feelings and stuff like that.

Ugh.

Kyouya, in his clean sweatpants, black t-shirt, and grey socks, dropped gracefully onto his butt across from Dino, leaning back on his palms.

“What did they tell you, bronco?”

“Well…” Dino looked more than a little sheepish; somewhat helpless, as if he were desperately wishing for Chrome and Gokudera to break down the wall and shout “it’s us, we’re here too!”. He scratched the back of his neck, looking down at his lap, and then lifted his head to grin at Kyouya. “I just missed you so much! We never get to battle anymore!”

A weak reason, a pathetic lie, but it was better than the alternative. “Let’s fight, then,” Kyouya said, standing back up immediately.

“Eh? N-no, that’s not what I meant!”

“Let’s fight.”

“In the first place, I’m here alone, so I’d be useless! And secondly, that’s not really why I wanted to come see you!” He laughed, rubbing the back of his head now. “Ah- ahaha, Kyouya, where did you get those tonfa?”

“Get up.”

“I don’t think we should do this!”

“Face me, Cavallone!”

“I’m just here to talk to you about your… you know!”

There was nothing but silence for a moment. So the truth had come out. “Say it,” Kyouya said, after a minute’s thought. 

“Huh?”

“You should say it.”

“Kyouya, that’s kind of...”

“If you can’t say it, you’re of no use to me. Get lost.”

“Your… you know… how you don’t eat…” Dino’s voice was soft, gentle. Kid gloves on bruised skin. 

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Kyouya said. 

“But you made me say-! Look, I’m not here to force feed you or anything, okay? That’s not my job, and even if it was, I wouldn’t do it. I’m here as a friend.” Dino smiled, cocking his head slightly. His tousled, wavy blond hair fell down over his shoulder and his cheek. “I’m your ally, Kyouya.”

“I don’t have allies,” Kyouya yawned, covering his mouth with a hand. “Don’t need them.”

“Everybody needs friends, Kyouya,” Dino said softly. “Please, will you sit back down? I just… I want to understand. Okay? Is that alright?”

“You’re pretty poor at this,” Kyouya said, lowering himself back onto the floor.

“I’m trying,” Dino said, scooting closer. Kyouya made no effort to move away. “Please just let me try.”

“Okay,” Kyouya said softly.

They sat in silence for a little while, Dino apparently thinking hard. Kyouya picked at the pilling on his sweat pants. He needed to find some new ones soon.

“Why…” Dino started, then stopped, shook his head, reconsidered, and started again. “How… how old were you? When you started, uh, not eating?”

Kyouya looked past him at the garden; the sliding doors had been opened to allow a breeze to come into the house, and numerous birds chirped from the trees around the pond.

“Next question,” he said, decisively.

“But you didn’t answer!”

“Next,” Kyouya said again.

“Alright, fine. Why don’t you feed yourself?”

 

_ “Food is for people who deserve to eat,” she said, holding him by the wrist. He sat on the floor, hand twitching in her tight grasp, whimpering and holding onto his raised elbow with his other hand. His shoulder ached where she had dislocated it; his clothes were sopping wet and quickly becoming cold, from being sprayed down. “As for you…” _

_ She grabbed his face, squeezing his baby-soft cheeks in her other hand, and began to drag him away. His eyes shot desperately around the steamy bathroom, then towards the crack in the door. _

_ “K-kei…”  _

_ Keiko’s eyes were wide, but she didn’t move or cry out. He could still see her behind the door as he was lifted by his arm into the tub- his shoulder hurt, terribly, but he couldn’t move when she was around- and then she held him down, one hand on his chest, one on his throat, and he gasped and choked and stared up at her, thrashing with his legs and his other arm, the one that didn’t hurt. Keiko- was Keiko still there, still watching from the other side of the door, watching her drown him? Was she going to see the life leave his body, his splashes slow and stop, the water sloshing in the tub and then stilling, stilling, dripping… _

 

“Kyouya?”

“I just don’t like to,” Kyouya said, liar. Dino sighed.

“We all have things we don’t like doing, but this is kind of a necessity, Kyouya.”

“I get to ask you something now,” Kyouya decided. Dino looked up, surprised.

“Okay… Go for it.”

“Why did you come here today?”

“I wanted to see-”

“No. Who asked you to come.”

Dino froze. Telling the truth, that Gokudera had called up with a favor, asked him to go take care of Kyouya and make sure he ate something- that was dangerous.

“I.... I. Uh.”

“Hm?”

“Tsuna! Tsuna wanted to know how you were doing, so…”

“So he can come see me himself. Nothing is stopping him.”

“Kyouya, you’re making this really difficult…”

“Tell me the truth.”

Dino was silent again, frowning- almost pouting, how childish- at his hands in his lap. Neither of them had any more to say; Kyouya was just waiting for Dino to say something else stupid so he could throw him out.

“Look…” Kyouya glanced back at the blond. “I won’t make you eat or anything… If you don’t want to, I can’t make you. But will you do me a favor?”

“I’ll tell Gokudera you tried.”

“No, I mean… Could I just stay and talk to you? I haven’t gotten to see you in so long, and… I missed you! You’re my student, you know? At the very least, can I see you for a little while longer before you kick me out?”

The thought of being missed was almost too much to bear all at once; Kyouya looked away quickly, silently fuming. How dare he- how dare he just come into Kyouya’s house and hurt him like that?

“You don’t-”

“I do miss you, Kyouya. Everyone misses you.”

Oh, fuck. Fuck off. 

“They’re trying to give you your space, but the guardians- your fellow guardians, they want to know what’s happened to you, and where you’ve been, and why you’re secluding yourself. Tsuna too- he really did ask me about you, if you’re okay and stuff… Even Mukuro is worried. I know it.”

“Ze doesn’t  _ worry. _ ” And yet he knew that to be untrue; even as it went against zir very nature to empathize and worry and care, the illusionist did, in zir own way. Ze still called when no one else would, and cooked for him without being asked, gave him the very things he didn’t want to need. And he could tell himself that those things were really for Mukuro, not himself, but that wasn’t true. Not by a longshot.

“The alliance is doing this big dinner next week,” Dino said carefully.

“I don’t want to go.”

“You don’t have to. No one will make you; I’m not going to make you. But everyone would like it if you did. They’d all like to see you again.”

It was just too much. Kyouya felt but didn’t really see his head tilt down, pointed at the space between his knees. “Kyouya?” Dino called from somewhere nearby, and then he edged into his line of vision, hands reaching for him. 

“I’ll go,” Kyouya murmured, against his own will. He hated having to say it.

“You- you will?! Really? That’s great! Everyone’s gonna be so happy to see you, Kyouya!”

Maybe it was some kind of fantasy, a dream he would awaken from in the middle of the morning, tears on his cheeks. Being wanted. Being cared for. 

Surreal.

**Author's Note:**

> Dunno if I'm going to finish the second part to this; I wanted to give it a happy ending and let Kyouya start to heal a little bit, but I keep writing too much...
> 
> Anyway, I've got some more Hibari stuff to finish and post, but I'm having the same problem with the other pieces too. Might take a break and work on some Squalo stuff instead. Either way, I'll be posting more KHR fic later on! Hopefully with happier tones!
> 
> anyway I just have so many headcanons and feelings


End file.
